Embodiments of the present invention are related to the field of electronics; and in particular, to the reformation of socket contacts of electronic apparatuses.
Modern electronic apparatuses often employ sockets having contacts disposed therein at predetermined positions. Further, the contact surfaces often have desired shapes or profiles. With modern surface mounted metallic spring contact sockets, e.g. Land Grid Array sockets, the contacts are often made of relatively thin materials, and therefore, relatively fragile. As a result, there is a significant probability that mechanical damage and deformation could occur, e.g. during system integration assembly.
Currently there are no devices designed for reforming damaged socket contacts (restoring their shapes/profiles), such as surface mounted metallic spring contact sockets, especially not in a repeatable manner. Under the present state of the art, damaged contacts, such as bent contacts, are often reformed using ad-hoc devices, such as tweezers. However, the ability to restore the shape/profile of a damaged contact to its original position and/or shape/profile using an ad-hoc device, such as a pair of tweezers, is limited. The options to successfully rework damaged contacts at the system level or in the field are often limited to replacement of the motherboard, or thermally unmounting and remounting another socket using surface mount techniques.